Benjamin has freckles. Thijmen has a knife. Their one thing in common? Having to live under the same roof. Every year, as part of a school program, a "troubled teen" is taken by a wealthy family in hopes to help him reform. This is what brought Thij...
"Has anyone ever taken you to the park to eat waffles before?"
"Of course," Thijmen replied. "I get everyone to buy me a hundred waffles and then ditch them afterwards."
"Oh."
"No, you're the first, Benjamin."
He couldn't help but smile, and when Thijmen leaned over to plant a kiss on his cheek, it was impossible to stop. One step closer to being a better boyfriend. What next?
"Hey, Thijmen?"
"Yeah?"
"How is your thing going? You know... the program."
"Pretty good," he said, shrugging. "I mean, it's kinda hard to misbehave when there's nothing bad I can do."
"Would you misbehave if there was something bad you could do?"
He turned to Benjamin with a frown. "What? No, of course not."
Ben stared ahead, fumbling with the edge of his shirt, feeling bad. That wasn't the right thing to say. Thijmen had told him that he didn't do what he did willingly. He had emphasized that he didn't want to be a criminal...
How does one swallow words after they've already been said?
For a long moment, they were both silent. Thijmen crossed his ankles and then his arms, before finally saying, "I just meant that they're not giving me an opportunity to misbehave, and even if they did, I wouldn't."
"I know," Benjamin blurted. "Sorry."
Thijmen shrugged.
Maybe it was time to change tactics. "What, uh... What would you like to do?"
"Right now?"
"Yes, right now."
"Did you not plan anything else besides eating waffles in the park?"
"I... N-no. We can go feed the ducks."
"There are no ducks. There's not even a lake in this park."
"We can feed the birds."
"We have no food to feed them. Unless you wanna throw your waffles back up."
"We can feed the dogs."
"Benjamin, I just said—"
"I'm out of ideas."
After a short laugh, Thijmen got up from the bench and held out his hand. "Let's just take a walk, okay? The waffles were more than enough."
"Or we can feed the humans."
"Just take my hand."
"Okay."
So he took his hand and they took a walk. Under the moonlight, because it was romantic. Even if there was a dog in the dark that kept barking at absolutely nothing, and its owner barking at it to shut up with a voice that sounded like she'd been smoking for thirty-six years, and a kid throwing a tantrum because he couldn't have ice cream, and even if the moon was actually hidden behind clouds. It's the thought that counted.
"Do you ever wonder what your life would have looked like now if I hadn't shown up?"
Benjamin peered up at Thijmen through the corner of his eyes. "No, not really."
"What do you think it'd look like?"
"I'd be playing games with my friends."
His mouth opened and closed. "Yeah, you're probably right."
"What about you?"
He took a deep breath. "I'd like to think I would have found a way to stop that whole drug mess without getting in trouble, but... I don't know. Maybe I wouldn't have. Maybe I would have gotten in trouble no matter what I did. And I wouldn't have met you."
"If you hadn't met me, you wouldn't even know I existed."
"True."
"But I exist," he added quickly.
"Yeah, I know, Ben."
"Whatever alternate universes you're thinking up, this is the one where I got you waffles."
"Yes, thank you, they were very good."
The good thing about this kind of silence was that it was best left alone. Granted, it'd probably be better without all the barking and yelling and cars beeping, but it'd do. Without thinking, because this was Benjamin, he asked, "What's going to happen at the end of the year?"
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